


worst case scenario

by Heavenward (PreludeInZ)



Category: Thunderbirds
Genre: Boys Become Thunderbirds, Gen, Megalomania, attempted poaching, prequel to a prequel, sensible friend and partner is sensible, wherein john is adorable and precious and so damn earnest I want to smother him
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-11
Updated: 2016-09-11
Packaged: 2018-08-14 12:23:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8013688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PreludeInZ/pseuds/Heavenward
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wherein Jeff Tracy is prevented from cussing-out the director of the World Wide Space Agency.</p>
            </blockquote>





	worst case scenario

**Author's Note:**

  * For [WinterSwallow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WinterSwallow/gifts).
  * Inspired by [That Which Tears Us Apart, Ties Us Together](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4919173) by [WinterSwallow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WinterSwallow/pseuds/WinterSwallow). 



“Get me the WWSA. Director Hammond’s line.”

“Right away, Mr. Tracy.”

There aren’t many people who can demand to talk to the Director of the World Wide Space Agency at the drop of a hat. Or rather, the thumb of a button of the intercom on a desk, but the point stands. Or, well. Plenty of people may _demand_ to do so. Very few can expect the request fulfilled. Jefferson Tracy, former Artemis Astronaut, pioneer of the technology that’s driving the next wave of space travel, is probably one of the few people in the world with the necessary leverage to just call up the head of one of the world’s most influential scientific organizations and get through to the top brass.

Especially when what one intends to say is, pointedly, “Mr. Director, what the _fuck_.”

It’s probably for the best that another press of the intercom button follows and a milder, calmer voice says, “Cancel that, please.”

“Yes, Mr. Kyrano.”

Probably for the best, but Jeff is still fuming, seething, and uninterested in being reined in as the sentiment still explodes out of him, “Ben. What the _fuck_.”

When “Ben” comes out instead of Kyrano, then the subject matter is intensely personal, rather than some matter of business. Kyrano’s had to stand up to reach over and hit the intercom button. He sits back down on the other side of the desk, and doesn’t shrug or spread his hands or wax philosophical. Just a calm, categorical statement of the facts; “You don’t know what this means.”

“Like hell. Like _hell_ I don’t! Get Lee on the line if you want a second opinion, he’ll know exactly what this is. This is bullshit. This is utter fucking bullshit and _bureaucracy_ and some of the pettiest, most vindictive goddamn politics I’ve ever _seen_. This is low, even for the WWSA, and I’m not going to stand for it. This is angled at _me_. This is because of something _I_ said, not because of anything my son deserves, because my son deserves a hell of a lot more than _this_.”

The accoustics in the west coast office are excellent. The entire room seems to reverberate with conviction, fervour, fortitude. Kyrano remains placidly unmoved by this show of rather theatrical temper, knows it for what it is. Just steam, venting off of the pressure that had built up during John’s call, behind the false smile and the fatherly enthusiasm and the careful refusal to say anything even remotely like “I’m happy for you”.

John doesn’t have Scott’s suave, easy charisma, doesn’t have Gordon’s ability to spin words into silver thread, and weave his way through the fabric of a conversation—Scott would’ve delivered the news with an “oh, by the way, the WWSA called—“. Gordon would’ve concocted a towering fantasy in which he was the central player, and that on the strength of his high score, (discovered in an ancient Space Invaders cabinet, from that one time they’d been on that one vacation out at the Grand Canyon) that a shadowy government agency had reached out to recruit him into the super secret war in the skies, a Gordon-flavoured Ender’s Game.

But it’s not Scott, and it’s not Gordon, because neither of them have been sidled up to, backed into the corner of the wall against which they flower, and had their metaphorical glasses breathed upon by the WWSA. It’s John.

And John had been just about _incoherent_ with excitement when he’d put the call into his father’s office, priority line, broken up a conference call with R &D to half-shout at his father that the WWSA had sent him a polite email, indicating that they were in the early stages of a new recruitment drive. And if he’d be willing to change to a qualifying degree, he would be considered a strong candidate for their astronautics program. That they’d be willing to take him on in a research internship while he pursued whatever discipline most interested him. He’d read the email aloud, then reread his favourite parts of it, and then asked his dad to hold on a minute while he forwarded a copy.

“That’s great, John,” his father had said, because there wasn’t the remotest possibility of saying anything else. “You sit on that for a little while and calm down before you tell anyone else, all right? You’re babbling a bit. Know how you hate that.”

“I’m _going to space_ , Dad.” Giddily.

“Of course. Of course you are.”

Then the close of the call, a long, brooding minute of silence, and an aborted call to the WWSA.

And now just pure, utter fury. “This is because I said that the future of space exploration is the property of the capitalist.”

It’s a not insubstantial ego that has the quote repeated, word for word, the way it had appeared in Time Magazine a decade earlier. “You said that a decade ago.”

“Former NASA astronaut bets against NASA. They remember.”

“I’m not saying they forgot, I’m saying it’s a long time to lurk in the shadows, waiting to snap up one of your boys, grind him through the Space Agency’s gears, and spit him out chewed up and cynical, purely to spite _you_. Why do you jump to the conclusion that this is a targeted, vindictive attempt to get into your bad books?” Kyrano chuckles. “John’s been putting in his application to the astronautics program every year since he could first fill it out. It’s possible he just got their attention.”

Kyrano’s presence in the Tracys’ lives is post-NASA. He’s heard all the stories, but lacks the foundation of real understanding about the actual mechanics of dealing with a Space Agency. Particulary with a space agency that’s being edged out of its broad dominance of the major milestones in space exploration by industry. So Jeff’s sneer is derisive, but probably has a certain degree of merit beyond the layman’s appreciation. “A _research internship_. He’s going to think it’s a fast track. It’s not. It’s a trap."

This is all tremendously strong language for the question at hand, and it's hard to know

"They’ll snare him into a hard science degree, they’ll work every last point of his IQ into dust, and mark my words, they’ll just keep buffering him along, always the next mission, or the next, and why doesn't he spend some time learning the ropes at Mission Control? Where he'll get to watch other astronauts doing what he was promised. He’s been waiting for this call since he was nine years old. He was _never_ supposed to actually get it.”

Kyrano coughs. “You told him a telecom degree would be a stronger foothold in the private sector, as a backup. You told him if he got that under his belt, he’d have a solid bedrock of training to get a foot in the door with commercial satellite companies, and that after graduation he’d be free to put in applications with the major national space programs.”

“Sure. But _eighteen months_ from now, not before I—“

Kyrano clears his throat again, leans forward in his chair. “You’ve been buffering him along in just the same way, it seems to me. Harvard. Telecommunications. When MIT and astrophysics are a stone’s throw away, he’s doing a telecom degree because _you_ told him; it would help him get into orbit. You. His astronaut father, upon whose achievements he’s patterned his ambitions, and in whom he’s placed his trust—told him to bet on the private sector, rather than to try and catch the notice of the WWSA, whose notice he is certainly more than capable of catching. And _now_ , you're pitching a fit because you think that the WWSA have been making sinister designs around your boy? You know what John is. It _can’t_ surprise you that they’d want him.”

“He’s mine. I need him.”

“He’s his own. You stop that.”

“Well, _they_ aren’t getting him. Not like _this_.”

Kyrano scoffs, “Like what? Like the way he’s always wanted? Your son’s dreams just came true and you told him to calm down and not tell anyone. The boy’s so far over the moon he hasn’t even noticed your attitude. Why would you waste an opportunity like this?”

Jeff Tracy's attention can be effectively snatched by the suggestion that someone else has seen something he's missed. Mostly because he doesn't miss much. "What?"

"You're still operating on the presumption that this is being put in motion to spite _you_. The arrogance of this is phenomenal, if unsurprising, and entirely disregards the possibility that it's pure merit that's gotten John this far. So why is this not good news? He's got what it takes. You can't plan to stop him?"

Not in so many words. Not in such a manner as would have made it plain that Jeff was putting his foot down, saying no. It would have taken a far more circuitous route, whatever it was he decided to throw into his son's path. "I'm not wrong about the WWSA. Lee _will_ back me up, this isn't a coincidence."

"So say that's the worst case scenario. So the WWSA pulls John in and he gets to see everything he never got told about. All the bureaucracy, the politics, the PR nightmares. The squabbles over funding. So he finds out that he can be tricked and trapped and used and baited along with relevant training and promises of missions two, five, ten years distant. A year and a half from now, you plan to ask for an informed decision. I'd like to think you take this as John, getting informed."

"That's not the worst case scenario."

Kyrano is around for many reasons, and worst case scenarios factor into many of these. To be told he's misidentified one prompts an arched eyebrow and a not-unchallenging, "Oh?"

Jeff shakes his head. His expression has softened from anger into something almost sadder, not quite concern. "Worst case, he's exactly what they're after. Worst case, they divide his time between that relevant degree and real, hard training. Worst case, surprise, wanting to be an astronaut from childhood and doggedly, rigorously pursuing that goal _actually_ results in an individual whose primed and ready to be an astronaut. Worst case, he gets everything that was given to _me_ , and eighteen months from now my son tells me he's been tagged for the first missions to Venus. I can't hope to compete with that."

"Ah. His best case scenario."

"Right."

There's a thoughtful silence, the sort that fills those excellent acoustics just as well as a raised voice does. "Which would you bet on?"

Jeff's answering chuckle is sardonic. "Between the WWSA being spiteful and my kid being brilliant and better than they deserve? It's a toss-up."

"So probably somewhere in the middle, then. Nearer to reality than spiteful apprehension versus your rose-colored view of your boy. Say in eighteen months you have to let him choose. You don't think he might go your way?"

Jeff sighs, heavy. "No way to know."

"Then you're in no worse a position than you were from the beginning," Kyrano concludes, and glances at his watch. "If I were you," he hazards, in that way he has of making suggestions that aren't actually suggestions as much as they are corrections of course, "I would have Tracy One prepped for departure. I'd call John back and tell him you'll be on the coast in two hours, and you'd like to take him to dinner to congratulate him properly. Whatever this brings about, you have to admit, he's worked hard, and he deserves it. Find a way to be proud. That, I think, is what you want him to remember, eighteen months from now."


End file.
